Acquisition Snag Delays Start Date On A1a Project

December 4, 1985|By Jeffrey Moore, Staff Writer

POMPANO BEACH — The widening of State Road A1A, a project that looks good on the drawing table, is creating headaches for officials who must purchase roadside property that cuts across the front yards of many condominiums.

Before negotiations with the affected condominium owners are finished, the start of construction will be pushed back at least a year, and perhaps two.

Just this summer, Broward County planners scheduled construction to be well under way next year. The prediction was overly optimistic. Officials now say the $7.9 million project, to widen A1A from two lanes to five between Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach and Pine Avenue in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, will be delayed at least into 1987.

Broward County voters first approved money for the project in a 1978 bond referendum. But that money ran out before A1A was widened south of Atlantic Boulevard, prompting Broward County to begin allocating funds for the project, including $7.3 million this year.

With money available, county officials attribute the latest delay to condominium ownership of long stretches of the A1A roadside complicating its purchase.

To acquire a 66-foot corridor needed to widen the 1.25-mile segment of A1A, the county will have to cut up to 12 feet off adjoining properties. Under existing laws, before the first inch of condominium property is acquired, every unit owner in the affected building has to approve a separate purchase agreement. ``I think we`re going to have problems,`` said Darwin Townsend, a chief engineer with Broward County and project manager for the A1A project.

Instead of approaching each unit owner, the county is researching its options. Sharon Miller, a county attorney, is trying to develop an alternative purchasing system. Perhaps the county could deal with the condominium association instead of each unit owner, said Miller. ``I haven`t found a way to do it yet, but we`re working on it,`` she said.

Edward Kuester, a county real estate officer involved with the acquisition of A1A property, said 40 percent of the property needed in Pompano Beach has been acquired. The condominiums have been excluded pending the completion of Miller`s research, he said.

Some representatives of the beach area said A1A condominiums are eager for the project to move forward.

Pompano Beach City Commissioner Thomas Flynn noted that A1A was improved north of Atlantic Boulevard without problems, using 1978 bond money. At that time, Flynn said, the county was already aware of logistical problems in attempting to deal with individual unit owners. He was one of them.

``Most of them are willing to move ahead,`` Flynn said of the condominium owners. ``With bumper-to-bumper traffic south of Atlantic Boulevard, I would think they would give second thoughts to when that road will be widened to ease that burden.``

Nate Braverman, a director of the beach area`s Pompano Beach Civic Association and a resident of Renaissance II, an A1A condominium, said nearly all the affected condominiums have furnished property, or are eager to do so. ``We`ve been sitting patiently, waiting year after year for this thing to get started,`` Braverman said. ``They (county officials) keep talking about the condos holding things up, but I don`t think it`s the condos.``

With $2 million allocated for roadside property acquisition, the county has spent $185,000 so far, Kuester said. Optimistically, he said, the process will be completed in a year. With that schedule, construction cannot begin before 1987, and then will take at least 15 months.

Until then, county traffic engineers said traffic will get worse, especially during the tourist season.

Fred Kleingartner, the city`s chief planner, said redevelopment of deteriorating businesses along A1A will be further delayed. Few developers, he said, will invest in property improvements before the road is widened.

Once the project is complete, it can tie into a state project to improve A1A in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea south of Pine Avenue to Palm Avenue. Between those points, a distance of one mile, Florida`s Department of Transportation expects to begin a $4.44 million project next year to convert Bougainvilla Drive into one-way traffic for southbound A1A motorists. A block east, the existing A1A will be converted to one-way northbound traffic.